


alibi

by celoica



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Blowjobs, Dom/sub Undertones, Fluff, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Murder, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 00:55:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celoica/pseuds/celoica
Summary: If someone had told him months ago that he would end up in Billy Hargrove’s bedroom, Steve wouldn’t have believed them, much less the way he got there. He would have laughed, nervous, and asked if they were okay, if they had fallen recently, or swallowed any black slugs that took control.Billy wasn’t his friend. He wasn’t his anything.But Billy stood over the body, blood leaking a pool on the floor from the splintering of Neil’s skull, eyes wide and wet and horrified. His shirt was soaked red, hands shaking. He trembled like a leaf, like the jitters had infected him. He shook like he was scared.“What did you do?” Billy asked, strangled and thick, clogged in his throat like old pipes. "Steve, what did you do?”





	alibi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LaVeraceVia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVeraceVia/gifts).



> Cheers to the holidays with murder and fluff! I hope this satisfies.

If someone had told him months ago that he would end up in Billy Hargrove’s bedroom, Steve wouldn’t have believed them, much less the way he got there. He would have laughed, nervous, and asked if they were okay, if they had fallen recently, or swallowed any black slugs that took control.

Billy wasn’t his friend. He wasn’t his anything.

But Billy stood over the body, blood leaking a pool on the floor from the splintering of Neil’s skull, eyes wide and wet and horrified. His shirt was soaked red, hands shaking. He trembled like a leaf, like the jitters had infected him. He shook like he was scared.

“What did you _do_?” Billy asked, strangled and thick, clogged in his throat like old pipes. “ _Steve, what did you do_?”

“Nothing! I—nothing.”

Nothing looked a lot like murder. It rang through Steve’s head like church bells, a dull alarm in the back of his skull.

He blinked, shook his head. Sludge filled up his brain, tar-thick, making all the things he knew he should be doing seem like a mere suggestion.

He should call Hopper. Joyce. Nancy, maybe. She was always good in a crisis.

“What the fuck. What the _fuck_ ,” Billy kept repeating, jerking between looking at Steve and Neil’s body. His hands shook still, dipping down to the caved in side of Neil’s head, like he could put it all back together if he tried hard enough.

Steve knew Humpty Dumpty well enough to know that wasn’t going to happen.”

“I just…”

“You fucking killed him!”

“He was hurting you!”

“That doesn’t mean you fucking _kill him_!” Billy scrambled up from his knees, leaving a bloody handprint on the yellow wall. “What the fuck, man. _What the fuck_.”

“Stop saying that!”

“You just killed my dad!”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“What the fuck!”

It was comical and surreal, like something out of the freaky sci-fi movies Dustin made him watch. He was the monster—or maybe Neil was—and the ominous music was playing in the background, loud and clear, raising the alarm for the next moment of horror.

He hesitated, inching forward until the tips of his socked toes kissed Neil’s lifelines leg. Nausea swelled in his throat. Billy flinched away when he looked at him.

“Don’t do that!” Steve snapped, irritation and panic prickling the back of his skull. “Don’t—I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, laughing, hollow as Hawkins after midnight, “but you sure did it.”

Steve closed his eyes and held his breath until the urge to throw up passed. “We should call the cops.”

When Billy laughed again it just sounded hysterical. “Are you fucking kidding me? We’re not calling the cops!”

“I just fucking killed your dad!”

“And I helped! I didn’t stop you.” Billy ran a hand throat his hair, twisting his fingers close to the scalp, eyes darting between Neil and the top of the stairs, from his own bloody hand print on the wall to the blood pooling beneath his feet.

Sanity had left the building but Steve clutched at the scale of _what would Nancy do_ and said, cracking, “the police can help! Hopper can help. He can—“

“I’m not going to fucking jail!”

Billy’s anger cut through the panic, slicing him open from the belly out. He turned, slamming the heels of his palms into Steve’s shoulder. Steve stumbled, hip smashing into the banister, yelling as pain exploded through the base of his spine and Billy wrapped his bloody hands into the front of his shirt, dragging him forward.

Billy’s breath was hot on his face, eyes wide, bloodshot. His lip was bloody from where Neil’s fist had greeted it. Fear churned in Steve’s stomach.

“You’re not calling the fucking cops, got it?” Billy ground out. His jaw clicked, the muscle leaping beneath skin as he gritted out, “I’m not going to prison. You think they’re gonna let this go? He wasn’t even drunk.”

Frozen in place, Steve sucked in a breath, eyes dipping the caved in skull, the lake of red staining the linoleum.

“He was hitting you,” Steve tried one last time. He bit his lip, chewed on the skin until it bled. “It’s self defence.”

“You bashed his head in, Steve.”

He could see it, printed in black and white on recycled paper, crackling over the ancient radio Mrs Kemper kept in homeroom, scrolling across the nightly news. _High schooler, 18, arrested for murder_.

“He was hurting you,” Steve repeated, voice small, eyes unseeing. Billy blurred in front of him. Visions of orange jumpsuits and shackled ankles, of getting his fucking GED in a grey brick room his parents never visited out of shame, eclipsed him.

Billy gave him a hard shake. Steve blinked until Billy was solid again.

“I’m not going to jail. You’re not going to jail. Neither of us are going to jail.”

“ _How_?” Steve asked, desperate and hopeful, like a child.

Billy let go of Steve’s shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles he’d ruched into the cotton. He smiled, brittle, and the dread rolled in Steve’s belly like a hurricane.

 

 

 

They sat in the car, silent. Steve didn’t know if there was a class somewhere for dealing with a dead body in your dad’s car while the guy who’d crammed him in there sat next to you, but Steve figured he’d fail it even if he were paying attention.

He cleared his throat. “So.”

“Don’t make small talk,” Billy said, grunting as he slumped lower in his seat. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, tucked through the loop of a baseball cap he had insisted on wearing. “It’s fucking weird.”

“This whole this is _weird_.”

“That doesn’t mean you gotta make it weirder.”

They lapsed into awkward silence, Steve biting his lip and glancing at Billy, Billy pointedly looking away from him. A ball of anxiety had wound itself in Steve’s throat, settling there. A car drove passed them and Steve held his breath, lungs aching and chest tight, until he couldn’t see them in his rearview mirror.

“You look guilty doing that,” Billy muttered.

“We are guilty.”

“You’re gonna have to work on that.”

“On being guilty?”

“Admitting to it.” Billy sat up in his seat. “Repeat after me--no, officer, I’ve never met Neil Hargrove.”

“No, officer,” Steve mimicked back, mocking, aggravated, “I didn’t murder Neil Hargrove.”

“You’re gonna rat me out the minute they talk to us, aren’t you?”

Steve snorted, fingers tapping at the steering wheel. “Aren’t you?”

“You wanna pinky swear on it, Harrington?” Billy asked, mouth turned up in a half-cocked smile that reminded Steve of a loaded gun.

“We killed a guy together. It’s like the worst first date I’ve ever been on. You call me Steve after this or,” Steve said, smacking his palm on the steering wheel, “I’m turning this car around and we’re going straight to the cops.”

Billy raised his eyebrows. He whistled, low and clear. “That’s what’s getting you heated right now?”

Steve scowled. “I’m trying here, okay?”

“Why?”

“You think this is gonna be this easy? We kill a guy, get rid of his body and never talk again?”

Billy scowled. “Okay, Mr. Big Planner. What the hell do we do next?”

Steve fell silent again. He bit the inside of his cheek. If he were smart, he would do what he’d said and turn the car around. If he were smart, he’d have never said yes, never scrubbed the Hargrove’s floor with bleach until his fingers burned, never put his clothes in a trash bag, never put Neil Hargrove’s dead body into the back of the Bimmer.

Instead, he was driving to the furthest reaches of town limits with a dead body in the boot of his dad’s car.

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted, still chewing on his cheek. He glanced at Billy. “Lie. A lot. We gotta lie and make it convincing. What were we doing tonight? Were we together? Studying?”

“No one with a single extra brain cell is going to believe me and you were studying together.”

Steve sighed. “Okay. So we weren’t together.”

“Yeah,” Billy said after a moment. “We were. We were fucking around. Drinking. Getting high.”

Steve side eyed Billy. “You want me to tell a _cop_ that?”

“What else are you going to say? The truth?”

“Something that isn’t illegal would be nice.”

“Like what?”

After a minute of silence, Steve said, “Okay, we were getting high and drinking. And then what?”

Billy have him a look that said you’re a dumb fuck, Harrington. Steve flushed, high red on his cheeks, and looked away. His fingers tapped anxiously on the steering wheel as they passed the _You Are Now Leaving Roane County_ sign in silence.

“Well?” Steve asked when it became too much.

“I’m not making up the whole story, moron,” Billy snapped. It lacked it’s usual viper bite. “If I do that, you’re going to forget, and then we’re going to go to jail, you’re going to become someone’s bitch and I’m  going to _die_.”

“Why are you the only one who dies?”

“That’s not the point, Steve.”

Despite the blood under his nails, Steve almost smiled. “You’re not going to die.”

Billy tossed him a baleful glare and sunk back into his seat, arms crossed over his chest. “Maybe they’ll give me the electric chair.”

“They’ll give us both the chair, idiot.”

“Oh, good,” Billy sniped. “That’s reassuring.”

Steve said nothing and let the silence swell between them. It was oppressive and loud, filling up the space until Steve felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“There’s this junkyard outside of town,” he said. His voice rasped on the last word. He cleared his throat. “The kids go out there a lot. It was there when I was a kid. Me and Tommy would go out there and play when the bowling alley closed.”

The look Billy gave him was suspicious. “Your play dates with Tommy have nothing to do with anything.”

Exasperated, he sighed and said, “No one goes out there but everyone knows about it. I picked you up from your place and we went there and smoked weed and listened to music and whatever.”

“That’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Steve heard the smugness, the smile, the little usual piece of Billy when he said, “You’re welcome.”

 

 

 

They buried Neil’s body in a grave that felt like six feet but was closer to four. Steve only knew that because he’d wiped dirt and sweat off his brow and said, “That’s enough, right?” and Billy had said the difference between prison in a week and prison in ten years with at least another foot.

Steve had believed him. There wasn’t anyone else to believe.

They buried Neil’s body together, cramming his legs and arms awkwardly to fit into the hole. Steve had found himself wishing—blasé, cool, too calm for the thoughts circling his head while they buried a dead man—they’d thought to get a saw or a knife or an axe.

In the end, they’d burned their blood-stained clothes and dropped off their shovels off near the old Johnson’s farm just outside of town, abandoned for nearly a decade and rotting from the outside in. The last time the cops had been called had been years before, when Steve had been a freshman, and the fear of being bitten by bats living in the attic and dying of rabies had been enough to scare him and the rest of Hawkins High off.

They sat in Steve’s dad’s car in Billy’s driveway, engine off and the heat slowly dissipating.

“Is that it?”

“You ask stupid questions, Steve,” Billy said and sighed, a bone-deep noise that sounded like Steve felt. “Of course that’s it. Who else you planning to kill tonight?”

“I meant us.”

Billy finally tore his eyes from the front door and looked at Steve. He looked like his heart had been cut out, bruises under his eyes and a grim curve to his mouth. His lips parted, tongue swiping across the bottom, and Steve felt something in his chest tighten.

One bad night at the Byers’ house hadn’t deterred Billy. It had made him worse. More selective when he approached Steve, but more aggressive, using cold taunts and sharp jabs on the court when he could, crowding too close in the locker rooms when he couldn’t.

Months and months of it, of hard looks and growled threats, the same dark look in Billy’s eyes when he pressed close enough their chests brushed. A part of Steve had liked it. He’d liked the attention and the taunts, the unrelating way Billy had pushed and prodded and _smirked_ at him like he knew what was inside his head.

Billy hard started it, but Steve shouldn’t have kissed him after practice.

“I thought we were done talking about that,” Billy said. “You think it really matters anymore? After this?”

“It matters even more.”

“You got all caught up in your own head, man. That’s nothing.”

The knot in Steve’s chest tightened, red creeping up his neck. “You kissed me back, asshole.”

“I didn’t.”

“Did too.

“Did _not_ ,” Billy snarled, the shift in the air so sudden it gave Steve whiplash. Billy thumped his fist on the dashboard, thumb curled into his palm and knuckles squeezing until they were white. “You fucking kissed me and then you killed my fucking dad. We’re nothing. _Nothing_.”

The flush on his cheeks burned, biting his skin. Steve jerked away, eyes staring forward. He swallowed once, twice and said, stiff, “Fine.”

“That’s it, then.”

“Guess so.”

Billy didn’t move. Steve closed his eyes.

“Get out of the car, Billy, and let this night end already.”

Billy got out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. Steve didn’t bother to wait until he got inside the house; he turned the key and drove home. He took a shower just shy of scalding and stayed beneath the spray until his skin burned red and his eyes stung from the heat.

He tossed the borrowed jeans and shirt into the washer. He stood in front of it, in his plaid boxers, and stared at the morning sun. Sky pink and cloudless, the sun crept up, lighting up the world with stretching shadows.

He opened the washer and took out Billy’s shirt, pulling it on.

 

 

 

After Will Byers, another missing person was both unusual and the new normal. The search party fanned out for a week before the rumors started. The titterings in church after Susan’s request for prayers for Neil, the soft whisper over morning coffee, the _did you know he beat her once?_ over the signing of a package on the front porch.

It felt like he should have known. It felt like there were red flags and alarm bells going off when Max spoke about Neil with a petulant scowl and a shrug. It felt like he should have known before, when Billy had slammed him against the wall at Shirley Hoffmann’s sweet sixteen and smiled against his cheek, called him weak and asked him if that was all he had.

He should have known when Billy had cornered him in the bathroom and threw his fist into the bathroom stall door and left a dent and bloodied his knuckles.

It was easier to not feel bad about killing Neil in the end but standing outside Susan Hargrove’s door, a pan of his mom’s infamous sloppy joe casserole in hand that could only be rivaled in inappropriateness by cheese fondue, not even two weeks after he’d done it made him feel sick all over again.

When the door opened, it was Max’s solemn face drawn tight who greeted them. She brightened, the crinkle across her forehead smoothing. “Steve,” she said, mouth curling around a smile.

The flutter in his stomach turned into waves that burned when they crashed together. He gave her a thin smile, painfully aware of his father’s heavy hand set on his shoulder.

Behind Max, Susan poked her head around the corner, red hair frizzy and dark smudges beneath her eyes. “Oh, Richie. Patty. ” she said, and then glanced at Steve, frowning like she couldn’t seem to figure out why he was there. “Steve. It’s nice to see you, too.”

They exchanged pleasantries about the weather before his mom offered up her dish and Susan let them, reluctantly, in. Steve stood in the living room with Max while their parents shuffled to the kitchen, his mom’s voice lowering as she asked, “Has there been news?”

Max pursed her lips at their retreating backs and said, “How toxic is it?”

“Don’t breathe it in if you can help it.”

Max hid a laugh behind a cough. “I’ll try. Thanks.”

An awkward paused stretched between them. Steve bit his tongue until he tasted blood. _Hey, sorry I killed your step-dad and bashed his brains in on the stairs_ laid on his tongue, invasive and honest.

Max frowned and opened her mouth to speak. From the kitchen, Susan called out, “Maxine? Darling? Can you come here for a moment?”

She rolled her eyes and tossed over her shoulder, “Coming!” She turned to leave and paused, glancing at Steve. She gave him another smile. “It’s good that you’re here.”

The words died in his mouth. Max’s head disappeared down the hallway and Steve turned to the stairs, taking them two at a time. It didn’t smell like bleach anymore.

He didn’t hesitate outside of Billy’s door. He grabbed the handle and turned, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him with a gentle click.

Billy stared at him from his spot on the bed, shirtless and cross-legged, his math textbook open and notebook laid across his knee.

“Uh,” he said, and blinked, and Steve swallowed. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

Steve jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “My mom wanted to see Susan.”

“Good for her. What are _you_ doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Billy’s lips pressed into a flat line. “Sucks to be you. I don’t wanna see you.”

He closed his eyes and counted back from five. “Sucks to be you,” he mocked, and sat down on the bed next to Billy.

Billy jerked away from him. “Don’t. Fucking leave, Steve.”

“No.”

“You stubborn piece of shi—”

Steve kissed him. He grabbed his face and pulled him close, pressed their mouths together awkwardly until they clicked into place. Billy froze, unmoving, and then growled, a deep wounded noise lodged in his throat. He shoved onto his knees and Steve followed him, clutching at his shoulders to keep close.

Billy’s arm wrapped around his waist as he shoved papers and books off the bed. He shoved Steve down onto the bed. Steve went willingly, pulling Billy down with him.

He straddled him and bent down, slanted their mouths together. Their teeth clicked. Steve groaned, twining his fingers in Billy’s hair. The heavy, sick feeling he’d been carrying around in the pit of his stomach evaporated like rain in the sun; heat and want, as heavy as the sickness, filled him up, taking over the empty space.

Billy kissed like a starving man, hungry and needful, drinking his fill while Steve held onto him. He bit his lip and sucked at his tongue. Steve groaned, low in his throat, and pulled him closer, until the space between them was nothing but blurred body heat and the raw scrape of Billy’s stubble against his jaw.

“Steve,” Billy said, rough against his mouth. He sounded gutted, wounded to his core. Steve kissed him, deep and hard, until his mouth ached. “Steve, Jesus. Why are you doing this to me?”

“Let me—”

Steve twisted beneath him, uncurling a hand from Billy’s hair to wedge between them. The fabric of his shorts was thin. Steve could feel the heat off his cock, plumping up against the palm of his hand. Billy groaned, loud, mouth falling open, damp.

Steve shushed him, kissed him quiet and dipped his hand beneath the waistband if Billy’s shorts. “They’ll hear you,” he warned, catching the head of his cock between his knuckles, stroking his thumb against the bunching of foreskin.

Billy’s whole body shook, hands shaking as he planted them on either side of Steve’s head, hips thrusting forward into his hands.

When Steve pulled away, Billy made a noise, eyes flashing angry and frustrated as he narrowed his eyes at Steve. Steve smiled, squeezing his hand as he stroked downward, watching as Billy shivered, eyes closing briefly.

“Lemme see you,” he murmured, thick with want. He slipped his hand from Billy’s shorts, hand burning where he’d touched Billy’s skin. He pushed at Billy’s hip, nudged him over onto the bed on his back. “I wanna see you when you come.”

Billy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he settled back on the bed. It was too small for them, and Steve ended up hunched over Billy, the fabric of his jacket stretched too tight across his shoulders. He hooked his fingers in Billy’s shorts, tugging them down. His cock jumped, slapping across his belly with a wet noise.

A floor below them, his parents and Max’s mom shared tea and cookies, talked about Max’s mom’s missing husband, and the thrill of it—of them being there, of them being close enough to be caught—thrummed through Steve’s body.

“You done this before?” Billy asked, husky and small.

Miles and miles of golden skin, flushed pink in the chest, dusky at the nipples and cockhead. “Not with a guy,” Steve admitted, setting his hands on Billy’s bare thighs and bending over. His kissed beneath Billy’s navel, the corner of his mouth brushing his cock. “Have you?”

 “No,” Billy said in the same thick, small voice, eyes half-closed and hips twitching up. His fingers curled into the sheets. “Not with anyone.”

Steve paused, eyes meeting Billy’s. Something possessive and wanton coiled in his belly. He wanted to burn his mark into Billy’s skin, sear himself so far inside Billy that he couldn’t touch anyone else without thinking of Steve.

“Don’t—” Billy started, swallowing hard. His hands squeezed tighter in the sheets, pulling one corner off the mattress. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like it matters.”

“It matters.”

Billy smiled, thin, joyless. “You won’t fuck a virgin, huh? You think I’m gonna be that bad?”

Steve curled a hand around the base of Billy’s dick, thumb stroking softly over the underside. It twitched in his hand. “You’re so fucking beautiful, you know that?”

Billy’s eyes opened, wide and disbelieving, staring. Red stained his chest, creeping over his neck. Steve’s heart thudded hard in his chest.

“Don’t,” Billy said, voice small.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve said again.

Billy closed his eyes, head turning away. “Steve. Don’t.”

“You’re such a beautiful boy,” Steve murmured and lowered his head, parting his lips and taking the tip of Billy’s dick into his mouth. Billy made a startled noise, loud and harsh. He crammed a fist into his mouth, head falling back against the sheets.

He closed his lips just beneath the head, rolling his tongue across it, tasting clean skin and a hint of salt. He sighed, muffled, and shifted the weight across his tongue, pressing it into his cheek, resting it against the back of his tongue.

It was weird. Heavy in his mouth, taking up all the space. It was nothing like eating pussy, like pressing a girl’s thighs to the bed and feeling her shake and rub against his tongue. Billy stayed stock still, eyes screwed shut and knuckles jammed against his teeth, thick thighs tense and trembling like a leaf. He stayed still, like he was scared to move. Steve was almost thankful; at least he wouldn’t choke.

Steve closed his eyes and sucked, tongue twisting and curling around the thick length. Saliva dripped from the corners of his mouth, slicking the stroke of his hand when he pulled away to rest his jaw. He kissed down the shaft, licked over the head, ducked his head down and sucked Billy’s balls into his mouth until Billy whined, thin and high, and begged, “Please, God, please, Steve. _Please_.”

He grinned, unable to help himself, and watched as Billy’s chest heaved, the muscles of his belly twitching and tightening, hips shifting restlessly. He stroked his cock, slow and meticulous, thumb rubbing beneath the head until Billy whimpered, head turning against the mattress as he orgasmed, spunk spilling thickly over Steve’s knuckles.

“Stop, stop, too much,” Billy choked out, tears in his voice, when Steve kept stroking, when he leaned down to lick over the head and taste him, salty and bright on his tongue.

Tongue pressed to the tip, he glanced up, watching as Billy’s flushed face turned a brighter red, fingers flexing white-knuckled in the sheets. He kissed Billy’s thigh, felt the shuddering sigh of relief as he laid down next to Billy, his own cock swollen and trapped beneath his fly.

Steve had always been good at this part. Sex was the easiest thing for him. He’d never been great at school, never been that committed to his parents’ future for him. He wasn’t smart or sharp or bright. He wasn’t good at talking about things.

“Can I—?” he started, reaching for his fly, as Billy heaved a breath and turned over and said, “Let me—”

They fumbled together, Steve’s jeans twisted too tight to be comfortable, cock aching as Billy took him into his hand, pressing his face into Steve’s neck as he stroked. His hand was slightly calloused, too dry, hesitating with shyness that Steve couldn’t believe was coming from Billy Hargrove.

It was perfect.

“ _Harder_ ,” he groaned, and bit Billy’s neck when Billy tightened his grip, hand moving faster, palming at the dripping head to smooth the way.

He breathed his orgasm into Billy’s throat, moaned his name and let his hips rut frantically through it. He smeared come on Billy’s hand and arm, the head of his dick nudging against his stomach.

Billy set his hand on Steve’s hip, face hidden still. They laid together, quiet, hearts thudding out of synch. Steve closed his eyes, forehead resting on Billy’s shoulder.

When Steve’s thigh started to ache and Billy’s hand began to cramp, they parted, shifting into more comfortable positions. They faced each other, Billy’s arm over Steve’s hip, Steve’s fingers drawing inane patterns on Billy’s arm. Neither of them said a word.

“Billy, have you seen—?”

They jerked, frantically scrambling for clothes. Billy rolled onto his belly, dragging the blanket with him, and Steve crammed his junk back into his jeans, wincing as he yanked the zipper closed too fast and caught the skin of his finger.

“Max,” he said, strangled, desperate, looking anywhere but where Billy was violently pulling on his shorts, hands shaking.

Max stared, eyes wide and horrified, face pink. She stuttered out, “I’m sorry—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” and took off down the hallway.

Steve stared at the wall, frozen. His parents were downstairs. Max had seen.

 _His parents were downstairs and Max had seen_.

Stomach lodged in his throat, he turned to Billy, looking for a lifeline. His face was pale, drained of gold. They stood in silence, heavy and pregnant, until Billy started laughing, quiet, and wiped at his eyes when tears sparked at the corners.

“Don’t laugh,” Steve said, numb.

“It’s fucking funny, man,” Billy said, rubbing at his eyes. He chuckled and shook his head. “She did this the last time. I kiss one guy and she goes and tells Neil. Who the fuck is she gonna tell this time?”

It took a moment for his outrage to dissipate enough for his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth. “My _parents_ , maybe? They’re downstairs.”

Billy sat on the bed and laughed again, soft, gentle, like early morning. “She likes you.”

“What?”

“Maxine likes you, dumbass. She fucking hates me. She’s hated me since she met me.” He huffed on another laugh, breathless. “She’s not going to tell your dad.”

Steve stared at Billy, white noise roaring in his ears. His parents were downstairs, eating tea biscuits and sipping orange pekoe with Max’s mom, and Neil Hargrove was dead in the ground because Steve had put him there. His mouth still tasted like Billy.

He waited for the angry thundering of his father’s feet, the frantic tap of his mom’s heels. It never came.

 “Okay,” he said, when the noise died down. He jammed his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Where’s that leave us?”

“Fucked.”

“We were fucked two weeks ago. Where are we now?”

“Mega-fucked?” Billy offered.

Steve sighed, pulling his hands from his pockets and scrubbing them over his face. “That doesn’t help.”

“You’re the one who jumped on my dick, okay? Don’t ask me what the fuck we’re doing.”

“We’re—” Murderers. Lovers. Something that encompassed the two. There wasn’t a word for whatever Steve and Billy were, and Steve didn’t think there ever would be one.

“I don’t know. We’re something. We’re—doing something.”

Billy looked at him. He frowned. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

“So, what—you wanna date? Wanna buy me flowers and take me to the drive in?”

“I’m an idiot,” Steve admitted, “but I’m not stupid. I get it, okay? This is Indiana and I think Tommy might actually try to bash my head in if he found out I sucked your dick, but I want to, okay? I want to. I want you. We fucked up and now your dad is gone, but I still want you.”

Billy just stared at him, quiet. When the silence swelled to the point of pain, Steve asked, “Do you want me too?”

“You killed my dad,” he said, finally, rusty.

“I’d do it again,” Steve said instantly. Bewildered, Billy’s eyes widened. “He hurt you and I’d—I’d do it again.”

He swallowed, the sick feeling creeping back in. Guilt and shame, intimately entwined with the remorselessness. He’d taken down Demo-dogs and the Mind Flayer; he’d handled Jane’s nightmares like a professional, battled his way through the entire house turning upside down. Violence had never been his forte, but the thought of Neil anywhere but rotting in the ground, being eaten outside in by worms, made him angry all over again.

Billy licked his lips. “You’re not like I thought you were.”

His mouth twitched, half-hearted. “I’m still King Steve.”

“No,” Billy said, “you’re not. You never were.”

“Disappointed?”

“Hardly.”

 Steve looked away. He felt naked, raw, exposed down to the bloody nerve. “So what’s that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

Part of him knew better than to hold his breath when it came to Billy. He’d known since the first time they’d met, since the first party, where Steve had been too focused on Nancy pulling away to bother to care about the peacocking in front of him, but he’d always known.

Billy was too much, too unpredictable. He knew better than to expect anything.

“I don’t know, okay?” Billy repeated, standing up. He paced in a short line, turning sharply on his heel to follow his own path. He stopped, looking at Steve. Steve forced himself to look back. “I don’t know anything. I think we’re going to death row, man. I think we’re going straight to the electric chair, and I’ve never had sex before this, and I feel like some fucking _girl_ who just let some fucker pop her cherry and now he won’t call her back, and _I don’t know_ , okay?”

Billy ran his hands through his hair, fluffing his curls, frizzing it through friction. He watched as Billy paced again, eyes jerking away from Steve and landing on anywhere else.

“I’ll call you back.”

Billy stopped and gave him an incredulous look. “That doesn’t matter. That wasn’t the point.”

“It’s the point,” Steve said, crossing the room. He stopped in front of Billy. “Your dad’s still going to be dead tomorrow. I can’t change that. But I’m going to call.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I know,” Steve said. “I want to.”

Clearing his throat, Billy said, “That’s real girly, Steve.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said, confident in the way he had been when he’d kissed Nancy for the first time, “you’re going to fall in love with me anyway.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Billy said, and it sounded so half-hearted that Steve laughed.

“I’m your idiot.”

“Like a _girl_.”

Steve glanced over his shoulder at the open door before kissing Billy again, soft and gentle, cupping his chin to keep him still until he was ready to leave. They ended up against Billy’s dresser, the wooden edge digging painfully into his back while Billy’s hands slid over his hips, palming his ass, squeezing and pulling Steve into his hips.

“We can’t,” he murmured against Billy’s lips, giving a reluctant nudge to his chest. Billy just pulled him closer. “We can’t, Billy. Max—”

“Don’t say her name,” Billy said, low and dark and with a hint of something raw like a threat, “when I’m touching you.”

Despite himself, Steve shivered. He wanted again. He wanted to push Billy down into the bed, strip him naked again and draw a map with his tongue. He wanted to lay down in the sun and touch Billy, commit him to memory, wring out those pleading, wanting noises he knew Billy could make.

He wanted to talk about that night, before Neil had ruined it, before Steve had ruined Neil.

“I have to go—downstairs,” Steve added, eyes half-lidded despite himself, head falling back to give more room for Billy to kiss his neck. “My parents are probably—wondering—and I’ll talk to Max—she won’t say anyth—”

Billy bit down on his neck, teeth cinching the tendon, and Steve’s toes curled in his Chucks. He hissed a breath of air between his teeth, lashes fluttering.

“S-Susan’s downstairs,” Steve stuttered, a reminder to himself. His mom was downstairs. His God-fearing dad was next to her, and he had his dick, half-hard, rubbing up against Billy.

“I need to—go.”

Billy smiled against his neck. “Then leave,” he said, soft, kissing below his ear.

It took long minutes of negotiation, kisses that left him breathless and desperate, a hand cupping his dick through his jeans, and a hickey beneath the collar of his shirt before Billy let him go.

Steve flattened his hair in the mirror, straightening his shirt and jacket. Farrah Fawcett had done him well, but she always did him dirty after sex. He scowled and struggled with a cowlick, taming it into submission with spit and brute force.

“I’m holding you to it.”

Steve stopped, hands holding down a curl, and turned to look at him. “Holding me to what?”

Billy smiled, all teeth and joy, and Steve’s heart skipped a beat. “You have to call me.”

“Oh. Okay.” He resigned himself to fucked up hair and dropped his hands. “I’m gonna ask you on a date. Just so you know.”

“I’m gonna say yes,” Billy said. His mouth twitched. “Just so you know.”

“Good. Good,” he repeated, and nodded, and remembered, once again, that his mom and dad were downstairs and he’d just had Billy’s cock in his mouth. “I need to go. They’ll come looking for me.”

Billy bent down to pick up his homework off the floor. He pulled the sheet back over the corner of the mattress and sat down. “Talk to Max. Just tell her not to say anything.”

“She won’t.”

“I know. She likes you.”

Steve bit his tongue. There was more there. There were things he needed to pick apart, preferably alone and while in the shower, coming up with a thousand scripts for the next conversation.

But there would be a next conversation (and kiss and touch and fuck) and that was all that mattered.

“I need to go,” Steve said again, and when Billy raised his eyebrows, head tipping back in invitation, Steve huffed on a laugh. “I’m not kissing you. I won’t want to leave.”

“I’m irresistible.”

“I know. It’s annoying.”

“You’re going to fall in love with me anyway,” Billy said, and when he smiled it was soft around the edges.

Steve felt his chest tighten and he grinned, stupid, deliriously so, and said, “Yeah, I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> And Neil stayed dead and they all lived happily ever after.
> 
> As always, you can find me on Tumblr @ [celoica](https://celoica.tumblr.com).


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